Housing Levy at 1.5% from employee and employer.
Employee levy
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Employer levy
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Combined (3%)
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Employee annual
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Your breakdown
Updates live as you type| Item | Rate | Amount (KES) |
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The 3 percent split you and your employer share
The Affordable Housing Levy is one of the newer lines on a Kenyan payslip, and it is one of the simplest to calculate, which is exactly why it catches people out. There is no band, no threshold, no relief to claim, and no ceiling. The rate this calculator applies is a flat 1.5 percent of your gross monthly pay deducted from you, matched by another 1.5 percent paid by your employer. Together that is 3 percent of gross flowing into the fund every month. The employee half comes out of your pay; the employer half is a cost the company carries on top of your salary, not a deduction from it.
This tool exists to answer three quick questions: how much leaves my pay each month, what does my employer add, and what does it add up to over a year. It is built for any salaried worker reading a payslip, and for small employers who need to know the true monthly cost of the levy across their team. Because the levy is a relatively recent charge and Kenya has been revising its housing and tax rules, treat the 1.5 percent figure as the rate modelled here and confirm the current position with the KRA before relying on it for payroll filings.
Working it out on a KES 100,000 salary
The maths is deliberately plain. The calculator takes your gross pay and multiplies by 1.5 percent for your share, the same again for the employer, and 3 percent for the combined figure. On the tool's default gross of KES 100,000 a month, your levy is KES 1,500, your employer adds KES 1,500, and the combined contribution is KES 3,000 a month. Over twelve months your own share comes to KES 18,000. There is no cap, so the levy scales straight up with pay: double the salary and you double every figure in the table.
The relief most payslips quietly apply
Here is the part many people miss when they look at a deduction list. Your employee share of the levy is treated as an allowable deduction before PAYE is worked out, so it shaves a little off your taxable pay. On a KES 1,500 levy for someone in the 30 percent band, that is about KES 450 of PAYE you no longer pay, which softens the net cost of the levy. You do not claim this separately; a correctly run payroll already nets it off. The way the relief is given has shifted with recent changes, from a 15 percent tax credit to a straight deduction, so if you are reconciling old payslips against new ones, that is why the treatment looks different. Confirm the current method with the KRA.
Does the levy apply to bonuses and allowances?
The levy is charged on gross pay, so as a rule cash allowances and bonuses that form part of gross are included, which means a big bonus month carries a bigger levy. Since there is no cap, nothing shelters the higher figure. If you want the full take-home picture for a bonus month, pair this with the PAYE and SHIF tools, because all three move together with gross pay.
What if I am self-employed and not on a payroll?
Non-salaried people are not left out. The structure the calculator reflects charges them the levy at 1.5 percent of gross income, without an employer match, so there is no second 1.5 percent. This page is built around the employee-plus-employer model, so if you earn business or freelance income, take the employee figure here as your guide to the 1.5 percent and confirm how and when to remit it with the KRA.